Enter the Elf
by Writer From Rivendell
Summary: Summary? "Jan Sullivan liked to think her life was orderly, normal. Of course, that was before a non-English speaking elf turned her world upside down." No Legomance, MS, or extreme OOC. Flames welcomed with open arms.


Disclaimer - I don't own the Lord of the Rings. All I can call mine is a demented IM account and a copy of the Riddle Master Trilogy. There you have it.   
  
A/N - After reading so many fics where an elf (namely Legolas) is dropped into our modern day Earth, falls in love with the character that found him, and ends up either marrying them here or taking them back to Arda, I've found that reading such stuff has begun to bore me. So I thought I'd write this - an expository fic on what happens when an elf comes to our world, speaking only Sindarin, and perhaps a bit of Quenya. Allow me the time to laugh evilly. Mwahaha. Thank you.   
  
For everyone's sake, this is set in the Fourth Age (FA) of Middle Earth, after Legolas and Gimli have sailed to Valinor.   
  
Also, please note that I - gasp - do have a beta for this. Unfortunately, as they've been swamped with work of their own, I have yet to get the beta'd version back. So. Any comments as to grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, or, "Oh dear gods, it's a Sue! Take it down!" are appreciated.   
  
She liked to say that her life was normal. Normal meaning that there was nothing that she could not handle. Yes, her job was hectic, yes, her home life was less than perfect, but she loved what she did, hence in her book it did not matter. Things were, to say the least, average. She liked it that way.  
  
Liked. Past tense. For when he arrived, from who knew where, things suddenly took a turn, leaving her planted firmly in the realm of fantasy, changing her view on the world from ordinary to extraordinary.   
  
Legolas Thranduillion.   
  
Part the First  
  
Jan Sullivan woke Tuesday morning to find her alarm clock beeping at her meekly, seemingly fearing her wrath, for promptly at six a.m. without fail she would throw it across the room, thus increasing the entropy of her environment, adding to the mess and allowing her a means of venting her frustrations.   
  
This morning, however, was different. The alarm clock was beeping in a much softer way - almost as if she had already thrown it across the room.   
  
She cursed and climbed out of bed, ready to search for her clock.  
  
Instead, she found an intruder - a tall man with blond hair.   
  
Her first thought was to scream and keep screaming until help came. This she tried, only to realize that at six a.m. no one in the neighborhood where she rented was awake, and probably would not hear her. Her second thought was to call the police. This she did. Unfortunately, her local emergency call center was experiencing technical difficulties involving their phone boards, and her call was unable to go through. It was around that time that she panicked.  
  
Without thinking of what might happen is she tried to run, she fled, ending up before her neighbor, Tom's, door, and pounding on it in a way that suited her situation until Tom finally opened it, and let her inside.   
  
"There's a man in my house," she gasped, breathless. "I woke up, and he was there, sitting at my desk. I yelled, but he didn't leave - and when I tried to call 911, I couldn't get through."  
  
"That was intelligent," commented Tom dryly. "Didn't it occur to you that getting out and calling from over here might have been a better idea? What if he was armed, Jan?"  
  
She flushed, upset that he was taking such a thing so lightly. "There's no time for that now," she snapped angrily. "The point of the matter is, there's someone in my house uninvited."  
  
He sighed. "Wait here. I'll go in."  
  
"Sure you will," she retorted. "What if you're right, and he is armed? What if he hurts you? What then?"  
  
He sighed again. "I know it's not the best thing to do, but as he didn't attack you, I think that he might not be a serious threat."  
  
"Might not be a serious threat?" she asked, her voice shrill. "Tom, I've known you to do some stupid things, but this is the stupidest yet."  
  
He shrugged. "Let's just wait and see, all right?"  
  
Before she could answer, he opened the door and jogged across the street to her house.   
  
"Damn it, Tom," she muttered fiercely. "Why do you always have to play the hero?"  
  
She was waiting at the window ten minutes later when Tom came back, leading after him a tall man with blond hair. The intruder.   
  
She sucked in her breath. "Tom, what have you done now?"  
  
Tom, who had by then entered the house, answered nonchalantly, "Nothing. Nothing at all. At least, nothing you'd be worried about."  
  
She closed her eyes. "You brought him here! Him, the intruder!"  
  
Tom grinned sheepishly. "He's not so much an intruder as, ah, lost."  
  
Jan stared at him in disbelief. "Lost?"  
  
"Well," said Tom quickly, before she had time to react, "he doesn't speak English."  
  
"So?" she challenged him. "That doesn't me he wasn't out to rob me blind!"  
  
"Or French, or Spanish, or even the little bit of Russian I know," continued Tom. "As far as I can tell, he doesn't speak any language I've ever heard - including Mandarin."  
  
"Mandarin?" she asked blankly. "You don't speak Mandarin."  
  
"Ah, no," admitted Tom. "I don't. But I do know what it sounds like, as I get shouted at in it over the phone every time I try to call my business associate in Hong Kong . . ."  
  
She shook her head. "You have a business associate in Hong Kong?"  
  
"Yes," he said, "But that's beside the point. Your intruder here doesn't seem to have been all that interested in stealing anything."  
  
"What do you mean, not that interested in stealing anything?" Jan demanded.   
  
"Well," said Tom, "for one thing, everything's in place. There was nothing missing that I could see. For another, when I found him, he was wandering around your kitchen, looking vaguely out of place. Thieves don't wander around kitchens - there's nothing to steal there."  
  
"He could have been looking for a knife," argued Jan.   
  
"Finally," said Tom, "you'll notice that while he's been standing here this whole time, he hasn't said one word. Don't you think that if you were being accused of breaking and entering you would try to defend yourself?"  
  
"Oh," said Jan meekly. "Oh. I suppose you would."  
  
She turned to the intruder-who-was-possibly-not-an-intruder. "All right, you," she said darkly. "What's your name, and what were you doing in my house?"  
  
The man did not respond.   
  
"Fine then," said Jan, voice rising. "Don't answer me."  
  
"I don't think it's because he doesn't want to," commented Tom, "but because he can't."  
  
"You don't think he's mute, do you?" asked Jan worriedly. "Because if he is, then there's no way of knowing what language he speaks."  
  
Tom, always sensible, sighed, and took from beside the phone the small pad of paper and the pen that he used to write down messages and phone numbers. Carefully he scrawled the questions Jan had asked in three different languages, and held them before the man's face. With a look of understanding, the man took the pad of paper and pen and began to write, covering the paper in strange lettering before handing it back to Tom.   
  
"Well," said Jan. "Is he mute? Can't he speak English? What is it?"  
  
Tom swallowed. "Jan," he said hollowly, "I don't think you're going to believe me when I tell you this, but it's Tengwar."  
  
She stared at him blankly. "Tengwar?"  
  
"Yes," said Tom in a queer voice. "Tengwar." He whirled around to face the man and began rattling off words that she had never heard before. "Thranduil? Glorfindel? Gil-Galad? Cirdan - wait, no, he had a beard, you don't. Er, Legolas?"  
  
At this the man nodded vehemently.   
  
Tom let out a low whistle. "Well, at least that's solved."  
  
"What's solved?" asked Jan. "And why all the funny names?"  
  
"You haven't read any of those books, have you? The Lord of the Rings?" asked Tom offhandedly.   
  
She shook her head. "No - I haven't seen the films, either - I haven't had any time."  
  
He sighed. "All right, then. I'll put it into simple terms. Jan, the man in your house this morning wasn't a man at all. He was - I mean, he is - an elf. Legolas, to be exact. How he got here, I don't know. How we're going to talk to him, I don't know. What we're going to do now I do know."  
  
"What?" she inquired.   
  
"Eat breakfast," replied Tom promptly. "There's enough coffee for the both of us. As for the elf . . . well, things always look better on a full stomach."  
  
Shrugging, she took the supposed elf by the hand and followed Tom into the kitchen. 


End file.
